Alvarez stays at Atletico - so are Arsenal too short in attack?

Arsenal failed to bring in an elite attacker in the transfer window after going for Julian Alvarez, Vinicius Junior and Morgan Rogers; after selling four first-team forwards, are Arsenal short in attack this season - and has it opened up the title race?

No Julian Alvarez to Arsenal. He joins Morgan Rogers and Vinicius Junior in not moving to the Premier League champions this summer. And Mikel Arteta has missed out on the star attacker he wanted.

After a summer-long transfer saga, Alvarez will now stay at Atletico Madrid after he tried to force through a move to Spanish rivals Barcelona, with Arsenal unsuccessful in convincing him to move back to the Premier League while waiting in the wings.

Speaking after the Champions League final defeat to Paris Saint-Germain, Arteta demanded Arsenal be "ambitious" and "fast" in the transfer market. The jury is very much out about whether Arsenal delivered on those two ambitions.

Arsenal started the summer with Rogers as their No 1 forward target. He went to Chelsea in a £117m, which Arsenal thought was too steep. They moved to an ambitious Vinicius Junior approach - but he stayed at Real Madrid.

Then came the Alvarez saga which ran right on until Deadline Day - but the Argentine never showed the desire to move to Arsenal. Christos Tzolis ended up being the only front three arrival at Arsenal this summer.

And despite that largely unsuccessful window in terms of the forward line, Arsenal still allowed Gabriel Martinelli, Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Jesus to leave - then also let Ethan Nwaneri join Borussia Dortmund on loan.

Four attackers out, one in. Are Arsenal putting their season at risk by being short in attack, not just in quality but in numbers too?

Left wing is a delicate area of the pitch, with Tzolis the only recognised player in that position between now and January.

Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke can fill in that position, but they are also tasked with providing cover and rotation for Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka in other areas of the Arsenal attack.

Eze showed after coming off the bench against Aston Villa that he can play in that left wing role and do a good job. But neither he nor Tzolis are really the pacy, one-on-one explorers that Arteta likes. Neither player tends to go in behind defences in the same way Martinelli used to.

Can Tzolis hold the left wing burden by himself for most of the season? Speaking to those who know him , one of his traits is the ability to recover from matches and go again three days later.

And at Club Brugge last season, Tzolis played just short of 4,400 minutes for the Belgian club. That's around 900 minutes short of what Martinelli and Trossard managed combined for Arsenal last season. On that basis, Tzolis may need to play around 10 more games this season compared to last - is that too many?

Another tense area of the pitch is centre forward. With Kai Havertz and Viktor Gyokeres in that area of the field and Jesus now departing, Arsenal are one player short in this position compared to last season.